This is Novell's prayers answered — a "reporter" who writes exactly what they tell him to. Vaughan-Nichols is a lazy genius: He's figured out a way to earn his salary by cutting and pasting content no one's going to complain about. In fact, he's probably the least headache for his own editor, since none of the companies he writes about ever call to complain that he got it wrong. Here's an idea for publicists: Stick a giant Creative Commons license atop all your press releases. See how many grateful bloggers take the hint and finally, finally run your talking points unsoiled by any of their error-prone original reporting.

• Last weekend's Re-Make event in Berekley was, on the outside, a complete success. But as it turns out, the 24-hour event was evidently vacant when the sun rose on 4-29 (NEVER FORGET!) According to the ConFonz's reliable servants, the bloated fat man in charge of the event threw a temper tantrum around 9 AM and threw everyone out. That means the event was, technically, only 21 hours long.
• Blind Item Cafe Press does a great job of filling closets with home-grown T-shirts and tchochkees with pictures of your kids printed on them. But it would seem that one of the company's sales and marketing executives is also in the closet. Sure, outing the gays isn't a lofty journalistic accomplishment, but rumor has it that this female blogger is denying the fact up and down the block, despite her extremely manish exterior. Come on, madam, this is the Bay Area. No one will think less of you for being a lesbian. In fact, most locals will think more of you!
• Novell is still doomed.
• Make Magazine may be a successful publication, and everyone may still be going to Maker Faire this year, but the O'Reilly's darling child still doesn't have any kind of budget. The magazine, evidently, practices what it preaches, and builds promotional materials out of things salvaged from dumpsters.